Department of Homeland
Security
Daily Open Source
Infrastructure Report
for 13 November 2008
Current Nationwide
Threat Level is
For info click here
http://www.dhs.gov/

The Point Pleasant Register reports that employees at the Mountaineer power plant in New
Haven, West Virginia, were evacuated Monday after Appalachian Power received a
telephone call from a man who claimed a bomb might have been on the premises. A similar
call was placed at the John Amos Power Plant in Putnam County, West Virginia, last week.
(See item 2)

According to VNUNet.com, two Los Angeles traffic engineers have pleaded guilty to
charges that they hacked into the city’s traffic control computer as part of a union dispute
over wages. (See item 13)
DHS Daily Open Source Infrastructure Report Fast Jump
Production Industries: Energy; Chemical; Nuclear Reactors, Materials and Waste;
Defense Industrial Base; Dams
Service Industries: Banking and Finance; Transportation; Postal and Shipping;
Information Technology; Communications; Commercial Facilities
Sustenance and Health: Agriculture and Food; Water; Public Health and Healthcare
Federal and State: Government Facilities; Emergency Services; National Monuments and
Icons
Energy Sector
Current Electricity Sector Threat Alert Levels: Physical: ELEVATED,
Cyber: ELEVATED
Scale: LOW, GUARDED, ELEVATED, HIGH, SEVERE [Source: ISAC for the Electricity Sector (ES−ISAC) −
[http://www.esisac.com]
1. November 12, KTUL 8 Tulsa – (Oklahoma) Tank explodes at gas plant in Panhandle.
A school in the Panhandle was evacuated Tuesday after an explosion at a nearby
natural gas plant but only as a precaution. A Texas County undersheriff says a liquid
condensation tank exploded about 9 a.m. Tuesday at the Duke ConocoPhillips plant
near the community of Straight, about 15 miles north of Guymon, Oklahoma. He says
plant workers shut down a pipeline connected to the tank that exploded and the fire
burned itself out by about 2 p.m. About 20 fire trucks helped put out the blaze. No plant
workers were injured.
-1-
Source: http://www.ktul.com/news/stories/1108/569209.html
2. November 11, Point Pleasant Register – (West Virginia) Bomb threat reported at
Mountaineer power plant. Employees at Appalachian Power’s Mountaineer plant in
New Haven, West Virginia, were evacuated Monday morning as law enforcement
officers with the West Virginia State Police searched the area for a bomb. Now,
troopers are looking for the man who phoned in the bomb threat. At 6:49 a.m. Monday,
the company received a telephone call from a man who claimed a bomb might have
been on the premises, according to a sergeant with the Mason County Detachment of
the West Virginia State Police. Authorities are continuing their investigation, and K-9
units with the state police that are capable of detecting bomb materials were called in to
assist in the investigation. A spokesman for American Electric Power (AEP) said that
Monday’s incident was the first bomb threat at the Mountaineer plant. The sergeant
said that after a search that spanned several hours, no evidence of a bomb or bomb
materials was found at the plant. This is the second bomb threat the company has had
the state police investigate. A similar call was placed at the John Amos Power Plant in
Putnam County last week, the AEP spokesman said. It was the fifth call made to that
plant within several weeks. Officials with the John Amos power plant have doubled the
reward to $100,000 for information about the people responsible for the string of bomb
threats against the facility. The Putnam County Sheriff’s Department, the State Police,
and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are involved in the investigation.
Source: http://www.mydailyregister.com/articles/2008/11/11/news/news01.txt
See also: http://sundaygazettemail.com/News/200811120317
3. November 11, Muskegon Chronicle – (Michigan) Judge drops anti-terror charges in
power plant trespassing. An Ottawa County, Michigan, judge dropped anti-terror
felony charges against a Muskegon man Tuesday, saying a Grand Haven power plant
can not be considered a Homeland Security “key facility” because its fencing has too
many gaps to meet that definition. During a hearing to determine whether a preliminary
hearing should be held, the 58th district judge dismissed felony trespassing charges
against the man. Those charges were brought following the man’s arrest after a man
was seen trespassing at the Grand Haven Board of Light and Power’s (BLP) Sims III
Power Plant. The man’s attorney said his client is prepared to enter a guilty plea to
misdemeanor trespassing charges. The man and his attorney challenged the charges
because of gaps in the southern portion of the fencing surrounding the BLP power
plant. Under the law, it is illegal for a person to enter a key facility “if the key facility is
completely enclosed by a physical barrier of any kind.” Last month, a scheduled
preliminary examination was postponed so that officials, including those from the
Federal Bureau of Investigation and Homeland Security, could walk the BLP site. The
area of focus was the southern end of the property, where a fence meets a berm
separating the site from a wetlands. The judge, who visited the site twice, said he found
at least a 15-foot gap between the end of the fence and the wetlands that included a
well-used deer trail. The assistant prosecutor argued that the intent of the fence was
clear and that the man was not a casual pedestrian who inadvertently wandered onto a
key facility’s property.
Source:
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http://www.mlive.com/chronicle/news/index.ssf/2008/11/judge_drops_antiterror_charg
es.html
[Return to top]
Chemical Industry Sector
4. November 12, Associated Press – (Indiana) Woman sues Pfizer over alleged PCB
spill. A Terre Haute-area woman is suing Pfizer Inc., claiming that the release of toxins
from a wastewater lagoon at 1 of its plants contaminated her property. The lawsuit by
the 79-year-old woman stems from the release of polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs,
in June. Heavy rains and floods caused a lagoon dam to break at Pfizer’s facility south
of Terre Haute. The suit claims the flood waters severely damaged her home. It also
claims Pfizer was negligent in maintaining its dam and seeks the ability to bring
environmental legal action against the company.
Source: http://www.fox28.com/Global/story.asp?S=9334172
5. November 11, Chicago Tribune – (Illinois) Leak prompts hazmat response. A truck
leaking chemicals has prompted a hazardous materials emergency response in
northwest suburban Streamwood, authorities said. Police stopped a truck leaking
chlorine and muriatic acid and told the driver to pull over into a parking lot at
Streamwood High School, Streamwood police said. School was not in session because
of the Veterans Day holiday, but some students and teachers there for extracurricular
activities were told to leave. As of noon, police and fire personnel were still at
the scene.
Source: http://mobile.chicagotribune.com/BETTER/news.jsp?key=186202
[Return to top]
Nuclear Reactors, Materials, and Waste Sector
6. November 12, Reuters – (Missouri) Ameren shuts Mo. Callaway reactor. Ameren
Corp. shut the Callaway reactor in Missouri from 97 percent on Nov. 11 due to a feed
pump trip, the company told the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in a report. The
company said the feed pump tripped on low lube oil pressure. At the time of the
shutdown, the unit was ramping up after exiting a refueling outage earlier in the week.
Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN1226185720081112
7. November 11, Rutland Herald – (Vermont) More cracks found on Yankee’s steam
dryer. Workers at Vermont Yankee nuclear plant identified 16 additional cracks in the
steam dryer, a key component in the reactor. Entergy Nuclear announced Monday the
plant had successfully completed a three-week refueling and maintenance shutdown,
and Vermont Yankee was back generating electricity. An Entergy Nuclear spokesman
said the discovery of the 16 additional cracks brings the total number in the steam dryer
to 63 cracks. He said the new cracks were a result of improved screening and high-tech
evaluation. He said the company believed the 16 additional cracks were not new, but
that technology was better at detecting them. All the cracks were due to intergranular
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stress corrosion cracking, a result of aging, he said. Despite the additional cracks, he
said the steam dryer was in “good” condition.
Source:
http://www.rutlandherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081111/NEWS02/811100
273/1003/NEWS02
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Defense Industrial Base Sector
8. November 11, Honolulu Star-Bulletin – (National) A six-hour blaze damaged a
special-warfare minisub Sunday. The Navy will begin investigating a battery fire that
damaged the nation’s only special-warfare minisub, a costly and problem-plagued
stealth boat that was getting a recharge at Pearl Harbor’s Waipio Peninsula. The
Advanced SEAL Delivery System minisub was undergoing routine maintenance in its
shore-based facility at 8:30 p.m. November 9 when Navy personnel monitoring the
battery recharging process noticed sparks and flames coming from near some of the
battery compartments, officials said. It took six hours to extinguish the fire and cool
any remaining hot spots in the battery compartment, the Navy reported yesterday. The
battery-powered minisub, designed to ride piggyback on an attack sub to within range
of a hostile coast or other target, has been part of a troubled program that began in
1992. The vessel was delivered to the U.S. Naval Special Warfare Command in 2001
and assigned to Pearl Harbor’s SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team 1 in 2003.
Source:
http://www.starbulletin.com/news/hawaiinews/20081111_Navy_to_start_probe_of_sub
_fire.html
9. November 10, Salem News – (National) Wyden objects to potential loss of critical
fighter aircraft. A U.S. Senator from Oregon says he has written a letter to the
Secretary of Defense and Secretary of the Air Force objecting to rumored plans for
early retirement of more than 300 fighter aircraft up to 11 years ahead of schedule.
Plans were in place to begin a phased retirement of these fighter aircraft beginning in
2014, but news reports are circulating that Air Force officials are considering
eliminating the aircraft from their fleet as soon as 2010. “While many of the aircraft
assigned to those units need to be replaced, this must be done only when replacement
aircraft are ready to continue the mission. To do otherwise would be tantamount to
eliminating this crucial mission and the critical safeguard it provides,” the Senator
wrote. Additionally, he asked the Secretaries for details of their plans to replace the
aircraft in question and the Secretaries’ proposed timeline for the aircrafts’
replacement.
Source: http://www.salem-news.com/articles/november102008/guard_aircraft_11-1008.php
[Return to top]
Banking and Finance Sector
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10. November 12, Reuters – (National) AmEx seeks $3.5 billion from government:
report. American Express Co., the fourth largest U.S. credit card issuer, is seeking
about $3.5 billion in tax-payer funded capital from the U.S. government, the Wall
Street Journal said, citing people familiar with the situation. It was not clear if the
application under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) came before or after the
company got Federal Reserve approval to become a bank-holding company. American
Express has not announced the application, and it is not known how it would use
government money. The company won the approval of the Federal Reserve Board to
become a bank holding company on Monday.
Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSTRE4AB1KG20081112
11. November 12, Bloomberg – (National) Fed said to seek oversight of credit-default
swap clearinghouse. The Federal Reserve is seeking to become the lead regulator for
clearing trades in the $33 trillion credit-default swap market, according to people with
knowledge of the proposal. The Fed, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission,
the Treasury Department and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission are
discussing a memorandum of understanding that lays out oversight of clearinghouses
that would become the central counterparty to credit-default swap trades, according to
anonymous sources. The Fed has been pushing the industry to form a clearinghouse
that would absorb losses should a market maker fail. Regulators stepped up their efforts
after the failure of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in September and the near-collapse
of American International Group Inc. The New York Fed has been meeting with groups
including CME Group Inc., Intercontinental Exchange Inc. and NYSE Euronext to
press them to accelerate their progress.
Source:http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=apgBhmu_U.Fo&r
efer=home
12. November 12, Reuters – (National) AT&T and Firethorn bring mobile banking to
iPhone customers. AT&T and Firethorn, a Qualcomm company, have announced the
availability of their mobile banking application for the iPhone. The companies said the
Mobile Banking on AT&T lets users securely and efficiently manage their finances,
including checking balances and transaction history, transferring funds, receiving
offers, viewing and paying bills, and tracking rewards points. The service is now
available for all Firethorn financial institution partners, including America First Credit
Union, Arvest Bank, BancorpSouth, Carolina First, FirstBank, Mercantile Bank,
SunTrust, Synovus, USAA and Wachovia. Additionally, iPhone customers will have
access to any new financial institution added in the future.
Source: http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2008/11/12/3779816.htm
[Return to top]
Transportation Sector
13. November 12, VNUNet.com - (California) LA engineers admit traffic light hack. Two
Los Angeles traffic engineers have pleaded guilty to charges that they hacked into the
city’s traffic control computer as part of a union dispute over wages. The engineers
broke into the Los Angeles Automated Traffic Surveillance Center, which controls
-5-
traffic lights in the city. The pair accessed the system illegally and shut down traffic
signals at four critical points in the road network, causing crippling delays. It took four
days to sort out the system and get it working normally. The hack is thought to have
been part of a pay-bargaining procedure between employers and the Engineers and
Architects Association, which represents workers at the Automated Traffic
Surveillance Center. But there is no suggestion that the union knew about or condoned
the men’s actions. The case highlights the problems of employees gaining control of
internal systems during disputes. In August the San Francisco state intranet was
hijacked by a rogue systems administrator, which may ultimately cost a million dollars
to repair.
Source: http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2230263/los-angeles-engineers-pled
14. November 12, Associated Press – (National) Panel plans guidelines on handling
airport delays. A federal task force approved voluntary guidelines Wednesday for
airlines and airports dealing with passengers stranded for hours on the tarmac but
produced no fixed limit on how long they can be delayed before being allowed to leave
planes.The task force recommends leaving it up to airlines and airports whether they
follow the guidelines or ignore them. The task force was not able agree on what
constitutes a “lengthy delay”—one hour, two hours or 10 hours. A task force member
and passenger rights advocate, said Tuesday there is nothing in the draft document that
requires airlines or airports to provide additional services for passengers stranded
aboard airplanes going nowhere. The report “is a set of best practices, but there’s
nothing enforceable” said the founder of the Coalition for an Airline Passengers’ Bill of
Rights, noting that airlines opposed any such moves. The Air Transport Association
said the task force achieved its objective and some of its recommendations are already
being adopted by the industry.
Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2008/11/12/AR2008111200229.html
15. November 11, Air Transport Intelligence – (National) Northrop: UAVs serving antimissile role for airliners too costly. After a U.S.-sponsored study and flight tests,
Northrop Grumman has determined that using unmanned aerial vehicles to thwart
missile attacks on airliners near airports is too costly to be practical. The results appear
to spell the end for the Department of Homeland Security’s Project Chloe, which has
considered using a long-endurance Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) such as the
Northrop RQ-4 Global Hawk to protect airliners from shoulder-fired missiles. In
DHS’s vision, a single UAV would loiter at about 65,000ft above an airport. It would
be able to detect missile launches fired at airliners inside the airport’s traffic pattern.
The UAV would then fire a laser through more than 10 miles of atmosphere to
scramble the missile’s infrared-seeker. Northrop’s study and flight tests for Project
Chloe, however, reveal the concept is far more complex and costly than DHS officials
imagined. Northrop’s study also shows that each airport must be guarded by three highaltitude UAVs on station simultaneously, instead of a single aircraft. Northrop plans to
deliver a concept of operations to DHS by the end of January to complete its part of the
Project Chloe contract. Northrop believes a cheaper and more effective solution is to
install laser-based countermeasures on the world’s airliners, starting with the aircraft
-6-
leaving U.S. airspace and landing in potentially hostile or unstable areas.
Source: http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2008/11/11/318719/northrop-uavsserving-anti-missile-role-for-airliners-too.html
16. November 10, Dallas Morning News – (National) TSA: Family Lines coming to all
airports soon. The Transportation Security Administration says it will roll out its
“family line” checkpoint concept to all its airports. It is currently used in 48 airports
right now, including Dallas Love Field. The concept gives travelers the choice by
splitting lines into “expert” travelers who know the drill with the shoes and the liquids
in the clear plastic bag and who are typically in a big hurry. Families with more
challenging screening get their own line and can take their own time. In a release, the
TSA also said it’s starting something called a “Green” lane for medically necessary
liquids, though it’s not giving much more details than that. It does say it will get the
work done at all airports prior to the busy Thanksgiving travel season. The liquid rules
are already on their way out in the next few years, thanks to the enhanced X-ray
technology that are already in many airports.
Source:http://aviationblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2008/11/tsa-family-lines-comingto-all.html
[Return to top]
Postal and Shipping Sector
17. November 11, Times of Trenton – (New Jersey) Drug found in letter mistakenly
delivered to Lawrence home. A suspicious substance found in a misdirected envelope
prompted a hazardous material scare November 11, but later it was determined the
content might actually be the drug methamphetamine, police said. The delivery was the
result of a postal foul-up. It was sent to a home on Pembroke Court instead of the
mailer’s intended destination in London, England. A police lieutenant said the residents
opened the envelope at their house and discovered inside a baggie containing white
powder, the amount of which was roughly the size of a half-dollar coin. The residents
brought the envelope to police headquarters, where officers put it in a bag and called
out the Trenton Fire Department’s hazardous materials team. HazMat team members
examined the envelope and tested the substance. The initial results of those tests
indicated it was “meth.” The police lieutenant would not reveal the exact address on the
envelope, but said that it was sent from New York City. A Lawrence detective has
notified the NYPD about the case.
Source:
http://www.nj.com/mercer/index.ssf/2008/11/letter_mistakenly_delivered_to.html
18. November 10, MyCentralJersey.com – (New Jersey) Suspicious envelope delivered to
Union County Courthouse contained sugar. An envelope containing a suspicious
substance brought the hazardous materials team to the Union County Courthouse the
morning of November 10 in Elizabeth. The white powdery substance in the envelope
was tested and turned out to be sugar. A spokesman for Union County said the
courthouse often receives envelopes that appear to contain anthrax. The FBI is
investigating.
-7-
Source: http://www.mycentraljersey.com/article/20081110/NEWS/81110020
[Return to top]
Agriculture and Food Sector
19. November 12, Xinhua News – (International) Bird flu outbreak occurs in central
Vietnam. A bird flu outbreak has been confirmed in Nghe An, a central province of
Vietnam, the local newspaper Liberty Saigon reported on Wednesday, citing a
statement from the provincial People’s Committee. The outbreak was spotted at the
Dien Hong commune, causing the death of nearly 1,000 poultry. Specimens from the
dead poultry have recently been tested positive to the bird flu virus strain H5N1,
according to the statement. The local authority has established a zone covering the
outbreak to prevent the virus from spreading. Consumption and sale of birds and birdrelated products within the zone are banned. Officials in Thailand have had to cull more
than 200 chickens after detecting the H5N1 bird flu virus in a rural area more than
400kms north of Bangkok, the Agriculture Ministry said. Tests confirmed the country’s
first outbreak in 10 months near the ancient capital of Sukhothai, where villagers had
found several dead chickens. The highly pathogenic virus was last found in Thailand in
late January in the northern provinces of Nakhon Sawan and Phichit, where thousands
of birds were culled.
Source: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-11/12/content_10345858.htm
See also: http://www.stuff.co.nz/northland/4757877a11298.html
20. November 12, US AgNet – (Michigan) Michigan revises EAB quarantine to include
entire Lower Peninsula. The Michigan Department of Agriculture (MDA) today
revised its Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) quarantine to consolidate all 68 contiguous
counties of the Lower Peninsula into one quarantine level — effective immediately.
MDA, however, is asking travelers not to move firewood to help prevent the artificial
spread of other exotic and devastating insects like Gypsy Moth. The ban on moving
firewood across the Mackinac Bridge remains in effect. As part of the amendment,
Delta and Schoolcraft counties in the Upper Peninsula (U.P.) were also added to the
EAB interior quarantine. This revision effectively merges the two previous quarantines
and makes the entire Lower Peninsula on level. “Hardwood firewood is still prohibited
from leaving the Lower Peninsula as it is the leading cause of spreading EAB and other
invasives. Quarantine violators can still face fines and jail time,” said MDA’s Pesticide
and Plant Pest Management Division Director. Individuals or businesses found
violating the state’s EAB quarantine are subject to fines ranging from $1,000 to
$250,000 and jail time of up to five years for moving regulated ash materials, including
firewood.
Source: http://www.usagnet.com/story-national.php?Id=2657&yr=2008
21. November 11, Truth About Trade & Technology – (National) U.S. effort to protect the
food supply from terrorism and other emergencies. The Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) and the Department of Homeland Security Customs and Border
Protection (CBP) have announced a final rule and draft compliance policy guide (CPG)
for “Prior Notice of Imported Food Shipments.” The “ ... draft CPG describes FDA and
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CBP’s strategy for enforcing the requirements of the prior notice final rule while
maintaining an uninterrupted flow of food imports ... The final rule retains the
timeframes for submitting prior notice ...” The update is that the Final Rule and
information about the draft CPG are published in the November 7, 2008 Federal
Register and that the Final Rule takes effect on May 6, 2009. The Prior Notice Final
Rule Draft CPG describes the enforcement discretion and states that the FDA and CBP
generally will not refuse the following foods that are imported without prior notice:
non-commercial (i.e., personal) shipments; gift packs with a single prior notice
submission; imported food arriving from/exiting to the same country; seed for
cultivation; certain U.S. government shipments; and foreign-to-foreign mail and courier
shipments to individuals.
Source: http://www.truthabouttrade.org/content/view/12708/54/
22. November 11, Associated Press – (Hawaii) Nestles Strawberry Powder recalled.
Hawaii health officials are warning consumers about Nestle Nesquik Strawberry
Powder that may contain small fragments of aluminum. The U.S. Food and Drug
Administration has announced that Nestle USA is voluntarily recalling its 21.8-ounce
strawberry powder. The Hawaii Department of Health says the product was distributed
in the state and sold recently in local stores. Health officials have not received any
reports of illness associated with this recall. The recall applies to two production codes
found at the bottom of the package. These codes start with the numbers 8225 and 8226,
and have a “best before date” of August 2010.
Source: http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2008/11/11/ap5678868.html
[Return to top]
Water Sector
23. November 11, Stillwater News Press – (Oklahoma) City Council hears sobering
water system news. An aging water infrastructure and a dramatic rise in system repairs
forced Stillwater City Council to take a sobering look at the situation and solutions
Monday. The city receives water from Kaw Lake through a 40-mile water line that has
experienced eight leaks since it opened in 1983. The city has about 1,500 fire hydrants,
five storage tanks and four booster stations. The city worked with R.W. Beck, an
independent firm that addresses financial, energy, water and waste water and solid
waste issues, to study the water infrastructure. The city and R.W. Beck found many
problems with the water infrastructure, now approaching 80 years old, and addressed
both water and waste water systems. The city averages four leaks per week from failing
pipes, which led to a loss of 2.7 million gallons of water in fiscal year 2007 and a loss
in fire protection and washouts in streets and sidewalks in fiscal year 2007. R.W. Beck
said the city needs to replace the whole system and proposed a gradual fee increase to
begin the overhaul in five years.
Source: http://www.stillwater-newspress.com/local/local_story_316112243.html
24. November 11, Water Technology Online – (National) EPA extends comment period
for perchlorate finding. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced
on November 10 that in response to requests, the agency is providing more time for
-9-
public comment on its preliminary regulatory determination not to regulate perchlorate
in drinking water at a national level. The agency now is asking that comments be
submitted by a new deadline of November 28. On October 3, the EPA announced that
after “extensive review of scientific data related to the health effects of exposure to
perchlorate from drinking water and other sources,” a national primary drinking water
rule for the chemical is not necessary. The EPA said a national primary drinking water
regulation would not provide a meaningful opportunity to reduce the health risk from
perchlorate. Perchlorate is a chemical that has been used at military installations and
defense plants as a rocket fuel, and also in conventional fireworks. Environmental
advocacy groups, including the Environmental Working Group, said they would sue the
EPA if its final perchlorate regulatory determination is that no national standard is
needed. Substances that are placed on the primary drinking water contaminant list are
assigned a maximum contaminant limit that is enforceable for public drinking water
supplies.
Source: http://www.watertechonline.com/news.asp?N_ID=70936
25. November 11, WYMT 57Hazard – (Kentucky) Notice of violation issued in
Whitesburg water contamination incident. The Kentucky Department for
Environmental Protection has issued a notice of violation (NOV) to a Whitesburg man
in relation to the leakage of waste oil from his property into the North Fork of the
Kentucky River in Letcher County. He was issued the NOV on November 7 for
degradation of surface water, failure to obtain a pollutant discharge permit,
unauthorized release of a petroleum product into waters of the commonwealth, disposal
of waste at an unpermitted facility, failure to notify of a petroleum release into the
environment and endangering the public welfare. On November 1, a petroleum-like
odor was detected at the Whitesburg water plant. Subsequent investigation revealed a
possible source of the contaminant one mile upstream of the Whitesburg Water Works
raw water intake on property owned by Childers Oil Co, Inc, in Whitesburg. The oil
was found to be seeping from a plastic-lined pit located on the river bank. City and
county officials, the Kentucky and Letcher County environmental response teams, the
Division of Water, the Division of Waste Management and the Division of Public
Health Protection and Safety participated in the response effort. Treatment and
distribution of drinking water was halted and a consumer advisory was issued warning
of possible dangers linked to consumption of the water.
Source: http://www.wkyt.com/wymtnews/headlines/34262179.html
26. November 11, Associated Press – (Maryland) WSSC will send emergency alerts. The
Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission (WSSC) will become the latest entity to
send e-mails and text messages to alert customers of problems on its water and sewer
network. The commission’s 1.8 million users can sign up for alerts when water mains
break near any address they select. A WSSC spokesman says all users will be alerted to
major events, such as a water main break that affects commuter routes. The WSSC
decided to introduce its alert system because an aging infrastructure means more burst
pipes, which can cut off service, flood roads and affect traffic.
Source:
http://www.examiner.com/a-1685734~WSSC_will_send_emergency_alerts.html
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[Return to top]
Public Health and Healthcare Sector
27. November 12, Concord Monitor – (New Hampshire) Apparent pipe bomb turns out
to be fake. Local and state authorities were called to Christian Avenue in Concord,
New Hampshire, just before midnight Tuesday to investigate a suspicious item that
looked like a pipe bomb, the Concord police said. The device, which was near the
Havenwood-Heritage Heights nursing home development turned out to be harmless,
and no one was hurt. The authorities took the item to a remote location and blew it up
with a blast from a water cannon.
Source:
http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081112/NEWS01/8111
20364/1043/NEWS01
28. November 12, Associated Press – (International) 15-year-old girl dies of bird flu in
Indonesia. Indonesian health officials say a 15-year-old girl has died of bird flu. The
doctor who headed the team that treated the patient said the girl was from the city of
Semarang, 250 miles east of Jakarta. She died late last week after 10 days of
hospitalization. The local health agency chief said test results from two laboratories in
the capital came back positive Wednesday. Officials believe she became infected after
coming into contact with sick poultry. Her house was near a chicken slaughterhouse.
Source:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081112/ap_on_re_as/as_indonesia_bird_flu;_ylt=AjbzfX
ftRw3kmW4jRYRsfW8Bxg8F
29. November 12, BBC News – (National) Google searches track flu spread. Google’s
philanthropic arm Google.org has released a new site that tracks the incidence of flu in
the United States based on terms used in Google searches. The system uses aggregated,
anonymous results from searches for flu-related terms and plots their locations. The
approach, validated against Centers for Disease Control (CDC) flu records, provides
timely data that could be two weeks ahead of government figures. The site, which is
free to use, will pass the early-warning data to the CDC. Traditional survey techniques
employed by the CDC take about two weeks to precisely identify outbreaks, and
Google hopes that its data, based on a stream of current searches, will serve as an early
warning system that the CDC can then act upon.
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7724503.stm
30. November 12, Chicago Tribune – (National) Bacteria that attack guts more
widespread than believed, study finds. A nasty germ that wreaks havoc in people’s
guts is infecting hospital patients at rates much higher than previously estimated,
according to a report released Tuesday. The study found that slightly more than 1 in
every 100 hospital patients are struck by Clostridium difficile, commonly called C. diff.
The bacterium can cause severe diarrhea, nausea and abdominal pain and sometimes
leads to colon failure and death. Experts suggest that programs to improve cleanliness
and hand-washing by hospital staff, as well as better control over antibiotics that can
increase susceptibility to infections are needed. The study, which was conducted by the
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Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology Inc., is the first to
survey a large, nationally representative group of medical institutions on the extent of
the bacteria in their facilities. All together, 648 hospitals in 47 states documented the
germ’s impact on a single day this summer. Extrapolating the findings to all U.S.
hospitals, the researchers estimated that C. diff strikes as many as 7,178 hospital
patients on any given day, and predicted about 301 people in this group will eventually
die of complications related to infections. The report has not been subjected to peer
review.
Source: http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/health/chi-c-diff-infections12-nov12,0,1625948.story
31. November 11, Reuters – (National) Hardest-to-treat form of TB rare in U.S.: study.
The hardest-to-treat form of drug-resistant tuberculosis is a growing threat in many
parts of the world, but remains quite rare in the United States, U.S. government health
researchers said on Tuesday. From 1993 through 2007, there were 83 cases of
extensively drug-resistant TB, or XDR-TB, reported in the United States, U.S. Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention researchers wrote in the Journal of the American
Medical Association. XDR-TB defies nearly all drugs used to treat tuberculosis, the top
cause of infectious disease death among adults worldwide. It is more difficult to treat
than the more common multidrug resistant TB, or MDR-TB, which does not respond to
the treatment by two or more of the primary drugs used for TB. Last year, there were
two cases of XDR-TB reported in the United States, the researchers said. There were
18 XDR-TB cases detected in 1993 but no more than nine in any year since. Thirty-five
percent of the people with XDR-TB died during treatment. The death rate for XDR-TB
was nearly double the rate among MDR-TB cases and more than six times greater than
among people with TB that responds to typical drug treatment.
Source: http://uk.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUKTRE4AA7SB20081111
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Government Facilities Sector
32. November 11, Associated Press – (Maryland) Bethesda teen indicted for bombmaking. A federal grand jury has indicted a Bethesda, Maryland, teenager accused of
stockpiling weapons and bomb-making material at his home, along with a map of the
Camp David presidential retreat. Federal prosecutors announced the indictment
Monday against the 18-year-old who is charged with possessing an unregistered
explosive device and false identification documents. Investigators have said they found
assault weapons, ammunition and more than 50 pounds of chemicals in the defendant’s
home. He also had a fake CIA badge, a fake ID for a federal contractor and the map of
Camp David with markings for the presidential motorcade route.
Source:
http://www.examiner.com/a-1684779~Bethesda_teen_indicted_for_bomb_making.html
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Emergency Services Sector
33. November 12, Associated Press – (Oklahoma) Oklahoma to debut new ambulance
siren you can feel. Oklahoma’s largest ambulance company will become the first
ambulance service in the nation to outfit its entire fleet with new Howler sirens,
designed to emit low-frequency tones that penetrate objects within 200 feet — such as
cars — to alert drivers. The Emergency Medical Services Authority (EMSA) has
equipped one ambulance with the new siren and plans to have them installed on all 77
units in Oklahoma within six months. Officials say the sirens are ideal for cutting
through a sea of traffic, and give emergency responders another tool to let drivers know
an ambulance is heading their way. So far this year, EMSA vehicles have been
involved in 16 intersection accidents, typically caused by an unyielding driver. Fifteen
of those times, the ambulances were on a call, said an EMSA spokeswoman.
Source:http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jQOqopRzDG9_R2zb65yR3xRfHewD94DB2L01
34. November 12, San Diego Union-Tribune – (California) Huge earthquake drill
planned for tomorrow. What is being billed as the largest earthquake drill in U.S.
history is scheduled for Thursday morning. An estimated 5.1 million people in
Southern California are expected to participate, including more than 400,000 in San
Diego County. The drill is part of the “Great Southern California ShakeOut,” a
simulation of a magnitude-7.8 earthquake on the southern end of the San Andreas
Fault, which would have widespread regional impacts. The ShakeOut was organized by
the Earthquake Country Alliance, a partnership of quake professionals, emergency
managers, elected officials, businesses and community leaders. More than 100 local
schools and 100 businesses have signed up to take part in the drill, and organizers
would like individuals and families also to rehearse their responses during a quake.
Additional exercises, which include a triage display at UCSD Medical Center in
Hillcrest Thursday morning, continue through next week. The preparedness drills are
designed to test emergency responders’ ability to deal with the impacts of a major
earthquake.
Source:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20081112-9999-1m12b2briefs.html
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Information Technology
35. November 11, DarkReading – (International) Relentless web attack hard to kill.
Thousands of Websites infected by a new Web attack during the past few days won’t
necessarily be safe even after they remove the offending code. “People are
recommending that the Website remove the link, but that’s not enough. If it has
compromised your machine once, it will do it again. We’ve seen evidence” of this, says
a senior virus researcher for Kaspersky Lab, which first discovered this new wave of
Web attacks late last week. The SQL injection attacks, which appear to originate from
China, appear to have peaked yesterday, according to Kaspersky. Among the infected
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sites found by Kaspersky were Travelocity.com, countyofventura.org, and
missouri.edu. It is not likely, however, that the attacks will reach the volume of SQL
injection attacks from earlier this year, which numbered in the hundreds of thousands
of sites, mainly because the new attacks are mostly using a new, stealthier, and more
closely guarded SQL injection toolkit, says the director of threat intelligence for
SecureWorks. The director and his team have been in communication with the Chinese
developer of the tool, hoping to procure a copy and reverse-engineer it. The toolkit is
protected with a layer of digital rights management and appears to be sold mainly in
China.
Source:
http://www.darkreading.com/security/attacks/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=WHSEF1M
KYKODWQSNDLPCKH0CJUNN2JVN?articleID=212001872
Internet Alert Dashboard
To report cyber infrastructure incidents or to request information, please contact US−CERT at soc@us−cert.gov or visit their
Website: http://www.us−cert.gov.
Information on IT information sharing and analysis can be found at the IT ISAC (Information Sharing and Analysis Center)
Website: https://www.it−isac.org/.
[Return to top]
Communications Sector
36. November 12, Associated Press – (National) IBM to help build broadband network
in power lines. IBM Corp. is throwing its considerable weight behind an idea that
seemed to have faded: broadband Internet access delivered over ordinary power lines.
The technology has been around for decades, but most efforts to implement the idea on
a broad scale have failed to live up to expectations. Now, with somewhat scaled-back
goals, improved technology, and a dose of low-interest federal loans, IBM is partnering
with a small newcomer called International Broadband Electric Communications Inc.
(IBEC) to try to make the idea work in rural communities that do not have other
broadband options. Their strategy is to sign up electric cooperatives that provide power
to sparsely populated areas across the eastern United States. Rather than compete toeto-toe with large, entrenched cable or DSL providers, IBEC is looking for customers
that have been largely left out of the shift to high-speed Internet. IBM has signed a
$9.6 million deal with IBEC to provide and install the equipment. IBEC’s chief
executive said putting the network in place should take about two years and cost as
much as $70 million. The company will have access to 340,000 homes in Alabama,
Indiana, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin, about 86 percent of
which have no cable or DSL access.
Source: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h34ExZwCNNQ6JAorv5jiHL3l_TwD94D69O80
37. November 10, Associated Press – (Massachusetts) Cell phone service debuts in Big
Dig tunnels. The nation’s most expensive highway project now boasts uninterrupted
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cell phone service throughout its network of tunnels, on-ramps and off-ramps in
Boston. The Massachusetts Turnpike Authority announced Monday that customers of
AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless can now use their phones inside the
Thomas P. O’Neill, Jr. Tunnel on Interstate 93 and the Interstate 90 Connector, which
links the Massachusetts Turnpike to the Ted Williams Tunnel and Logan International
Airport. The turnpike’s executive director says in addition to helping commuters and
public safety officials, wireless phone service will also generate badly needed revenue
for the authority.
Source:
http://news.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/2008_11_10_Cell_phone_service_de
buts_in_Big_Dig_tunnels/srvc=home&position=recent
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Commercial Facilities Sector
Nothing to report
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National Monuments & Icons Sector
38. November 11, California Fire News – (California) Red Flag warnings: Southern
California Santa Ana event. The state of California issued Red Flag warnings for the
Cleveland National Forest on November 11. A Red Flag warning indicates elevated
vulnerability to forest fires. The Red Flag warning will stay in effect until November
15.
Source: http://calfire.blogspot.com/2008/11/red-flag-warnings-southern-california.html
[Return to top]
Dams Sector
39. November 12, Sacramento Bee – (California) Reservoir on its way back following
repairs to dam. Water is rising again in Caples Lake after an emergency drawdown
over the summer to replace damaged gates in the lake’s main dam. The project engineer
with El Dorado Irrigation District reported November 10 that construction was
complete and, with the new gates operating, the lake has filled to about 1,100 acre-feet
of its 22,300 acre-feet capacity. The district owns and operates the lake, which is off
Highway 88. Construction costs totaled about $744,000. As the lake level dropped, the
district worked with the state Department of Fish and Game and volunteers to rescue
more than 26,300 fish and transfer them to nearby lakes. Restocking of Caples Lake
will begin next spring. Caples Lake is part of the irrigation district’s hydroelectric
Project 184, consisting of lakes, canals and a hydroelectric plant.
Source: http://www.sacbee.com/197/story/1390203.html
40. November 12, Burlington Hawk Eye – (Iowa) Artifacts threaten to delay levee
project. Archeological artifacts have been found near the Oakville levee along the
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Iowa River, which may push back the final levee construction project to begin some
time next spring, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. “Artifacts have been
found, and we are still conducting archaeological surveys to determine their
significance,” said a Corps spokesman. Since the new permanent levee will be set back
from the original levee alignment, federal law requires the Corps to make a cultural
assessment of the site as an environmental study. Officials said all field work regarding
the artifacts must be completed before any construction can begin. A research team is
now working closely with federal and state officials. Further investigation, they said,
will reveal if any of the undisclosed sites are eligible for the National Historic Register.
Corps officials also are working with Two Rivers Levee District to ensure Oakville and
surrounding area residents are protected in the event the project gets delayed beyond
next spring. One of the most likely projects is to raise the $1.1 million temporary levee
the Corps constructed and completed in July of this year about five feet. That
temporary levee, which runs across County Road H22, was constructed to keep water
from flowing into Oakville after the Iowa River retreated to its banks a few weeks after
it inundated the town and surrounding areas. If the sites are eligible for the historic
register and could be damaged once a levee is constructed, then officials will need to
implement a recovery and mitigation plan – coordinated by the Historic Preservation
Office – before any construction can begin.
Source: http://www.thehawkeye.com/Story/Flood-artifacts-111108
41. November 11, Associated Press – (Illinois) Railroad to drain IC Lake for dam work.
Illinois-Central Lake in McComb is being drained for upgrades to the dam. CN
Railroad notified local residents by letter of the work. The railroad says the Mississippi
Department of Environmental Quality wants it to bring the existing dam structure into
compliance with new safety regulations. A railroad spokesman says the project
includes rebuilding or replacing drainage and overflow pipes located in and under the
lake bed and dam. He says the 14-acre lake will be completely drained, which will take
about a week. Work on the dam will take five to six weeks. The lake should refill in
about 90 days and restocked with fish.
Source: http://www.sunherald.com/306/story/944993.html
42. November 11, KWMU 90.7 St. Louis – (National) Geology plays big role in levee
breaches, study finds. This summer’s flooding led to several levee breaks along the
Mississippi River, and data presented at a conference November 11 says the geology
beneath levees has a lot to do with whether they hold or fail. Two-thirds of the 60 levee
breaks in 2008 happened near locations breeched by floodwaters in 1993, said an
associate professor of geological engineering at the Missouri University of Science and
Technology. He was part of a team that studied the levee breeches. The team found that
most of the levees that broke were built right at the river’s edge and made primarily of
gravel or sand, meaning they cannot handle water flowing over them for long periods
of time. Continual levee breeches at those locations are likely, he said, unless engineers
create more places for the water to go on the floodplain, perhaps by buying up some of
the agricultural land on the riverbank. “We’ve diked off too much of the floodplain to
be able to handle these maximum events without having a lot of failures,” he said.
Source:
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http://publicbroadcasting.net/kwmu/news.newsmain?action=article&ARTICLE_ID=14
12372&sectionID=1
43. November 10, WAGA 5 Atlanta – (Georgia) Some area dams in need of repairs say
officials. The state’s Safe Dam Program is inspecting hundreds of dams and said some
of the structures need immediate repairs. Inspectors said the drought can cause more
damage to dams than the normal weather cycles. The earthen dams crack, and then can
fall apart once rains do come. All 470 dams classified as high hazard – those where
people would likely die if there was a failure – are being looked at. More than 250 are
in Metro Atlanta. Inspectors said at least 25 percent of Georgia’s high hazard dams are
in trouble. Inspectors said about 100 of the high hazard dams in the state need some
sort of repair.
Source:
http://www.myfoxatlanta.com/myfox/pages/News/Detail?contentId=7833106&version
=1&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=3.2.1
[Return to top]
DHS Daily Open Source Infrastructure Report Contact Information
DHS Daily Open Source Infrastructure Reports − The DHS Daily Open Source Infrastructure Report is a
daily [Monday through Friday] summary of open−source published information concerning significant critical
infrastructure issues. The DHS Daily Open Source Infrastructure Report is archived for ten days on the Department of
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Web page at www.us−cert.gov.
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